i've only felt religion when i've lied with you
by vindictive trollop
Summary: Regina scoffs and jerks her head away—she cannot help but feel as though burning trails have been left in the wake of Maleficent's touch, little sparks of fire wherever her fingertips had landed. dragon queen.


Maleficent arrives at her door one evening. She is dressed in one of her suits, all grays and blacks, with the curves of her full mouth painted a smooth purple-red and her gaze expectant, impatient and half-lidded. "It's about time you answered the door," she drawls coolly and steps into the manor without permission, not that Regina has forgotten much of their past to forget how Maleficent never asks permission, not for anything. (Except to kiss her, except to touch her, and never leaving bruises on her thighs and never biting her hard enough to make her bleed and...and those are the times that Maleficent asks permission, those _were_ the times, long since passed.)

Regina has forgotten none of their past, however. She doesn't think she ever can or will. She doesn't say this, however; instead, she tracks Maleficent's movements with her eyes and delivers a response dripping with cynicism, "Are we having sleepovers now?"

Maleficent goes to the couch and so she goes too, and it is not until Maleficent sits down, making herself home in her surroundings—and Regina should not be surprised, and she is, because she has betrayed Maleficent, she has hurt Maleficent. (She has betrayed and hurt so many people.) And yet Maleficent is here. They have not spoken, not really—except when they are in the company of others, except when they are talking more about deals and promises and saving people and saving things and Storybrooke and not about Regina, not about Maleficent, not about themselves.

Not together, not quietly, not apologies Regina feels building up behind her teeth and in her throat, not tears, not long conversations carried throughout the night and into the following dawn, not. Not.

It is not until Maleficent sits down does she speak, as she crosses her legs and eases lazily into the back of the sofa, that indolent state that Regina remembers, and a wave of remembrance washes over her, a sort of nostalgia. Maleficent has always been like this—elegant but slothful, always relaxed in her company and no one else's. In this way she's like a cat, and the thought comes so sudden and random that Regina almost misses Maleficent's reply.

"Do you truly expect me to sleep in that little hovel that the werewolf matriarch owns, Regina?"

Regina feels more amused than she should, carefully sitting at the opposite side of the couch. There is so much space between them it is like a yawning chasm, a gap, a rift torn open that she cannot close on her own. Maleficent will make the first move or not, and if not, Regina will understand something. Hopefully. She certainly doesn't understand anything now. Dragons are not forgetful, patient, forgiving creatures. And Maleficent is a dragon. And Maleficent is sitting here, as though nothing has ever happened at all.

"She goes by Granny."

Maleficent arches a brow and purses her lips, and that expression says all about what exactly she thinks of _that,_ but that is not enough, of course—that is never enough for Maleficent. Silence is never enough for Maleficent, and so when she says in a tone pressed thin and slow, as though pointing out something very obvious that even a child could understand, "She is not _mine._ "

Regina has a sudden thought of Maleficent calling Ruby Lucas' grandmother _Granny,_ like it's normal, and swallows a laugh.

And then it is silent. For a time. Maleficent watches her and she watches Maleficent, and though they are both doing the exact same thing and it is not a battle or a game, Regina feels as though she is losing.

"Come," Maleficent says, tapping the spot closer by her with a gloved hand. Regina feels something twist in her stomach—a familiar feeling. She feels it every time Maleficent is near, now, equal parts apprehension and...something else, something Regina can't quite put her finger on. She knows, however, that she does not like it. She raises a brow in silent question.

Maleficent exhales thinly, not exasperated or tired enough to be a proper sigh. "Come," she repeats, "We have done this before and you have never shied from me, have you? What has changed?"

What has changed, she says, like nothing has changed. Like she does not know what has changed.

Both of them know that it is very much the opposite, that Maleficent knows and feels and remembers a sword sliding past scale and flesh into her chest, all because Regina had sent the Savior down there to do it in the first place.

Regina looks at Maleficent and has another sudden, random thought, one that is not welcome or expected but one that occurs all the same: who had dressed her, in her first days awake and fully aware in this town? Had Cruella and Ursula spun her around in front of a mirror and decided that, yes, sharp suits and tall heels and red lips had suited her best?

She imagines this and feels strangely like laughing again, just because the thought is so – it's a _thought,_ certainly, and she can believe it. For whatever reason, she can believe it.

She wonders if Cruella and Ursula and Maleficent had built more of a friendship than an alliance during their time together, that they were not simple acquaintances or allies but more like—and she does not know why she is thinking of this. They are both gone. Maleficent is here, however, and if she is mourning Cruella and wondering where Ursula is, she does make it obvious, she does not ask.

Regina moves closer, until there's only a few inches of space left between them.

That space is filled with her apprehension, almost a physical thing by how real it is, and surely Maleficent can feel it too, can see it clear as day on her face. Like Regina is living and breathing only to showcase her emotions in her eyes and in the way her hands shift in her lap.

Maleficent breathes out again, and this time it is a sigh. It is how Regina remembers it; a drawn-out, impatient sound, and Maleficent reaches over and touches her on the shoulder, as though expecting something to come of it. Something does—she freezes, muscles coiling and tensing and then relaxing in a series of motions that she knows cannot go missed. Maleficent rubs a thumb over the ball of her shoulder, shifting further up until her fingertips meet Regina's collarbone.

Her hand smooths over the edge there, touches her neck lightly, and for a moment Regina thinks it will close around her throat and—and that thought is just a thought, and it does not happen.

"Do you fear me now, Regina? Hm? Is that what this is?"

Regina scoffs and jerks her head away—she cannot help but feel as though burning trails have been left in the wake of Maleficent's touch, little sparks of fire wherever her fingertips had landed. And, more than that, she cannot help but remember the way it had been before.

Maleficent's touch had always felt like living flame, and it had never once been unpleasant like other touches offered to her were—her mother's bruising touch, Leopold's coaxing touch. It had only ever been her father, Daniel, Maleficent. Her father, Daniel, Maleficent. Those touches were kind and gentle, coaxing in a way that did not make her skin crawl, those touches made her relax like her bones were no longer made of steel weighing her down.

Regina wants, briefly, to feel that hand again, on her. On her shoulder, fingers brushing against her pulse, over her collarbone. She wants a head on her chest, a leg circled around her own, a tall feminine form pressed against her so closely that there's not a single sliver of space left between them. She wants a hand on her spine, stroking, she wants a hand in her hair, petting.

But that is only briefly, only a second, and then the need is gone, the want is gone.

"I have never feared you," she says coolly, and thinks of how she is lying and how Maleficent knows she is lying, and it is not even a convincing lie, not even a somewhat convincing lie.

"Then come closer," Maleficent says, and Regina convinces herself that it is only to prove to Maleficent that she is not afraid. She moves closer, and certainly doesn't want to. She does it slowly and with clear reluctance, of course. Her leg brushes against Maleficent's, and that is when she stops.

It feels like there is a knot in her throat, her stomach and her chest all at once, and it's decidedly uncomfortable – and when Maleficent sighs irritably again and pulls her in, Regina is taken off guard and fails to struggle, despite her instincts—the ones that scream _stop this before it continues._

Maleficent kisses her on the mouth, and she tastes—like Maleficent has always tasted, like warmth and life. If Regina truly wanted, she could count the number of times that she'd ever kissed Maleficent (twelve—thirteen, now) and each time it had ended, she had been left with a feeling of utmost disappointment, but everything around her, all of her surroundings whether it be the interior of her castle or Maleficent's fortress or a grassy hill or the shore of a lake, always seemed so much brighter.

This time is no different, and it is...not quite surprising.

No, in fact, it is not surprising at all, even if the kiss itself is. She has kissed Maleficent enough times to know what comes with it, before it and after it, and Regina finds slowly that she is kissing back, that no tongue darts out over her lips and Maleficent in no way deepens the kiss, but a hand—gloved, thin-fingered, warm—finds its way to curl around her hip, a soft light weight, and the other closes around the back of her neck, pulling her so close that they are suddenly pressed together.

When Regina has the realization that she is kissing Maleficent, and that Maleficent is kissing her, and that it feels as though a piece of her has clicked into place, a long lost piece thrown away by her own actions, she recoils.

Maleficent licks her lips, watching her with a gaze that is not predatory though it can easily turn in such a direction. Regina watches her back, and the blonde's face is soft and gentle and her eyes are not dark with overwhelming lust, but as blue as they have ever been in her human shape, and she is looking at Regina as though she expects her to do something.

Regina only wishes that she knew what that something was.

But she does not, and so she only sits there, tasting Maleficent on her mouth, a part of her wanting to stand and tell Maleficent to leave and another part wanting to apologize and another part, the biggest part, wanting to lean in and kiss her old friend again.

"May I stay, then?" Maleficent asks her, her voice smooth and Regina suddenly thinks of Lily, of the fact that Maleficent has a child, of the fact that Maleficent is a mother, and—it is not difficult to think about, it is not a ludicrous thought, it is not strange or unusual. She has never imagined Maleficent as a mother before, but sitting here now, she thinks that the woman has the capability to be many things and that a mother is not the oddest of all of them.

A hand lands on her thigh after some time, squeezing, and then it moves back into Maleficent's lap. For a moment, Regina really truly wants to grab it and put it back on her leg, but she doesn't. It's a stupid thought. Truly. It is. "May I stay?" Maleficent repeats, softer this time, and Regina wonders how long it's been since she'd asked it the first time, surely not long enough to necessitate a reiteration.

Regina breathes in and nods, and she doesn't trust herself to speak but she does so anyway. "Of course."

Maleficent lifts a hand and touches her face, trailing it along the curve of her jaw. "Thank you," she murmurs, and Regina does not lean into the touch but for a moment she feels like she might.

Instead, she stands, smoothing down her skirt with her hands. "Some wine?" she says, and something in her head shouts, _danger, hazardous territory, do not enter._ But she doesn't take it back.

Maleficent smiles up at her, leans back into the couch again, crosses her legs and tips her head towards the ceiling. "I never turn down the offering of wine, dear. Especially if it's from you."

The word dear thrums down her spine, rattling somewhere inside of her against the curves of her ribs.

It's a pleasant word, that word, and she wants to hear it again and never again all at the same time.

Regina smiles back, slowly, and says, "Yes, I remember."


End file.
